New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, top, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, top, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

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New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, center, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, center, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

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New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

Photo: Dave Ryan

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New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, left, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, left, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

Photo: Dave Ryan

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New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, top, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, top, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

Photo: Dave Ryan

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New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, bottom, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, bottom, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

Photo: Dave Ryan

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New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, left, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, left, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

Photo: Dave Ryan

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New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, top, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, top, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

Photo: Dave Ryan

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New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, middle, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, middle, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

Photo: Dave Ryan

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New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, right, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, right, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

Photo: Dave Ryan

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New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, middle, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, middle, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

Photo: Dave Ryan

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New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, top, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, top, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

Photo: Dave Ryan

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New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, right, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, right, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

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New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, third from left, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise less

New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, third from left, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The ... more

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New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, right, in blue, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise less

New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, right, in blue, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The ... more

Photo: Dave Ryan

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New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, right, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, right, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

Photo: Dave Ryan

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New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, left, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, left, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

Photo: Dave Ryan

Image 22 of 25

New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, top, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, top, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

Photo: Dave Ryan

Image 23 of 25

New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, left, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, left, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

Photo: Dave Ryan

Image 24 of 25

New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, left, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

New head basketball coach at Hamshire-Fannett High School, Tommy Collins, left, held a practice on New Years Eve in an older gym while the boy's gym was having the floor re-finished. Dave Ryan/The Enterprise

Photo: Dave Ryan

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Coach's long journey ends at H-F

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Tommy Collins was two stops from his hotel and worlds away from Hamshire-Fannett.

Sundays in Cumana, Venezuela meant going to the beach for nearly everybody in the city and Collins was merely doing as the locals did.

He lived in a downtown hotel and did not want to make the drive to the beach himself - he says drivers there are crazy compared to those in America - so he took the bus every week.

Normally, there were only two people on the bus at this point in the ride, Collins and the driver.

But this day was different.

Three men sat towards the

back of the bus. Collins eyed them. He considered it strange, but did not think much of the irregularity beyond that.

They reached the next stop. One more to go.

The three men stood up and began approaching Collins.

Of the three, two began making their way to the door first with the third staying behind.

As they passed Collins, the last of the two reached over and grabbed Collins' gold Saint Christopher medal hanging around his neck.

Christopher is the patron saint of travelers in Catholicism. Traditionally, the medal is engraved with the words, "Protect Us."

The man snapped Collins' medal off his neck, but the real target was his satchel.

Collins sprung up and tussled with the man who had taken his medal. As the two fought, the third man, who had been staying back, took the satchel and ran off the bus with his two associates following closely behind.

Collins stayed on the bus as the driver drove in pursuit.

But in the narrow passages of the Venezuelan neighborhood, the bus became wedged between a house and telephone pole.

Collins jumped off the bus and followed the trio through three houses, having to scale the walls that separated each backyard by climbing up a ladder.

"It was like a movie," he said of the 1987 encounter.

***

Time and experience have hardened Collins.

At the East Chambers Holiday Tournament on Dec. 28, H-F was playing Hitchcock.

The 67-year-old was in his element, on the sidelines.

Collins, in his first season as H-F head basketball coach, stood in his default stance, arms crossed with his large square-framed glasses fixated on the game. He clapped occasionally, but never smiled.

His spot on the sideline has been constant throughout a 44-year career that has included 17 different coaching jobs.

"There's not the commitment that you have to have to be successful," he said of his team. "It's tough because these kids play because they enjoy playing. I've been in a world where they play because they receive compensation and in college they're receiving a scholarship."

***

There are high school and college coaches that come to be defined by the schools that employ them.

Statues are built. Facilities are named. Legends are created.

Collins' longest stop at a school was Howard College (1993-2001), a junior college in Big Spring. Like most places where Collins has coached, his legacy - if there is one - lives on in the players he coached that went on to continued success.

"I feel very fortunate that I've gotten the chance to work with a lot of great kids," he said. "That for sure is the most fun thing, when someone you coached 35 years ago gives you a call to say they're in town."

Collins played the game, moved up and down the ladder.

Maybe he didn't win enough.

Maybe he took the wrong jobs. Maybe he didn't shake the right hands.

After graduating from Black Hills State University in South Dakota in 1969, Collins and his wife Bev moved to Parker, Ariz., where he got a job coaching at a junior high school.

Then the whirlwind tour began: Arizona, California, Florida, Louisiana, Big Spring High School, Cisco, University of St. Thomas in Houston, Mexican and Venezuelan professional teams, Lamar, Central Missouri State, Lindenwood College, Howard College, recreational director at a prison system in Big Spring, Grayson County College, academic specialist for Lamar football and now, Hamshire-Fannett.

It all seems like a blur to Collins, he's never bothered to count the total stops.

"I took some bad jobs and when you do that, you start so far down the hill," he said. "To get halfway up the hill is a battle. When you're coming up the ladder, you're not going to get the opportunity to go to UCLA. You got to take what you can get and hope that you can move up the ladder."

He was an assistant coach at Lamar and a head coach at the small junior colleges, but never the head man at a Division I school.

"We all have goals we would like to accomplish and yeah, I definitely would have liked to go to a major school," Collins said.

It just never happened for Collins - and that's just fine by him.

"The thing with Tom is that it does not make a difference what level he's coaching or what age group," Bev said. "It's just as important (to him) no matter what…when we were first dating and he said coaching was going to be his life and you have to realize that it's not about the money, it's about coaching kids."

***

Bev currently lives in Sherman and Tommy is in Hamshire.

"Tonight's our wedding anniversary," Collins said during a Dec. 31 interview in his office. "She was going to come down but she got the flu. It'll be the first time in 46 years we haven't gotten together."

They met in college. Through all the coaching changes and moves, Tommy always made a point of seeing his wife, even if it meant flying to another continent.

He made the 364-mile drive to see her on Christmas and Bev is planning on doing the same next week.

"I told him, you're not getting out of the old anniversary celebration," Bev said. "You still have to wine and dine me."

They miss each other, but Bev said that the distance makes it that much better when they do get together.

"Everywhere I went, good things happened to my family and I think that's one of the keys," Collins said. "When I went to Missouri, my youngest daughter ended up finishing school at Lindenwood and she got to go free because I was on staff."

Bev said their girls, Stacey and Stephanie, didn't mind the moves.

They enjoyed going to work with their dad at the games.

Now Collins is a grandfather. He still enjoys coaching and has the energy to do it.

"You never say never in this crazy business because you don't know who's going to call and what situations might arise," Collins said. "But this will probably be my last stop and I'll retire."